Monday, September 29, 2014

David Cronenberg's Hollywood-centered family melodrama Maps to the Stars marks the veteran director's second straight film with Twilight alum Robert Pattinson after 2012's Cosmopolis.

Although many still see Pattinson as vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen, Cronenberg told The Hollywood Reporter he could easily look past that.

"I have no problem ignoring that," the director said of Pattinson's Twilight past. "Of course I watched the first Twilight movie just to see what he was like and get a feel for his screen presence and so on and so on…by the time you're on the set, it's just the two of you making movies. You forget your own movies too.'"

Speaking to THR ahead of Saturday night's New York Film Festival screening of Maps, Cronenberg explained that he wanted to work with Pattinson (who wasn't in attendance at the New York event) on this movie not only because the director thinks of him as "a wonderful actor" and they "had a good time on Cosmopolis" but also because it provided the opportunity for Pattinson to participate in the sort of ensemble film he'd told Cronenberg he wanted to do.

"He told me that he was scared about Cosmopolis because he had not really wanted to do a movie where he was the lead and had the whole movie on his shoulders," the director explained. "And of course in that movie he's in almost every scene. He said, 'One day I'd love to do an ensemble piece where there are a lot of good actors and [he's] just one of them.'"

When Cronenberg was putting together Maps, he thought of his Cosmopolis star.